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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29382636">Man carrying olives, marble, 4th century BC (?)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughingpineapple/pseuds/laughingpineapple'>laughingpineapple</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Piranesi - Susanna Clarke</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Hyperreal Statue, Post-Canon, Real world, Screenplay/Script Format, realism was taken to the back of the shed and shot at some point during the outlining of this fic, the Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 07:14:45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>477</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29382636</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughingpineapple/pseuds/laughingpineapple</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Conversation around a statue.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Matthew Rose Sorensen &amp; Sarah Raphael</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Chocolate Box - Round 6</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Man carrying olives, marble, 4th century BC (?)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cyphomandra/gifts">Cyphomandra</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Taking objects back! One hell of a prompt you got there! Happy chocobox!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Two FIGURES circle an ancient bust in the low light of the museum’s storage, indeterminate like veiled statues themselves.</p><p> </p><p>FIRST FIGURE (interchangeable, by now, steeped in otherworldly thoughts): “This one.”</p><p>SECOND FIGURE (interchangeable, as above): “Yes: this one.”</p><p>EITHER, from here onwards: “It is the mystery.”</p><p>“It is the awe.”</p><p>“Indeed the label says: man carrying olives, marble, 4<sup>th</sup> century BC – question mark, in brackets – from Valentine Ketterley’s private collection.”</p><p>“It could look Greek, if one wanted to see Greek. No doubt Ketterley labelled it so to stave off suspicion, a private joke to laugh at as he kept it on display.”</p><p>“I wonder what tipped off the question mark.”</p><p>“I wonder if someone felt the mystery, if someone felt the awe. I wonder if it will be allowed to remain an open question.”</p><p>“Do you remember?”</p><p>“Its plinth? It carried the statue’s broken legs and a portent of olives, in the farthest corner of the Fifth Western Hall. He would not explore far, nor look for the wondrous broken fragments in the Coral Halls. Ah, enough about him. He is dead.”</p><p>“...a portent of olives.”</p><p>“A portent of olives. I always pictured they would be two, one carried in each hand.”</p><p>“Instead, we get a handful.”</p><p>“Bountiful harvest.”</p><p>“What now?”</p><p>“We trust the statue.”</p><p>“What else is there for us, all sarcasm long abandoned. We trust the statue.”</p><p>“Look! Already it creates a correlation with the naked bronze and the fragment of the head tilted its way, it constructs sense.”</p><p>“So it does. This space grows rich with meaning.”</p><p>“And peace.”</p><p>“On second thought: the peace, this deep, is new. Meaning already existed, I suspect. It now surfaces.”</p><p>“Imagine this same weave in the halls above.”</p><p>“If that open question were left to unfold?”</p><p>“The statue is not Greek, nor English. It remains unfamiliar with the passing of our centuries.”</p><p>“Someone here could notice. Someone already noticed, after all, enough to add the question mark.”</p><p>“Exhibit the conundrum.”</p><p>“The question would draw in a public. For sure, not all of them would hear the Tides, even entering a Hall with such a statue on display.”</p><p>“But those who would...”</p><p>“Oh, those who would.”</p><p>“Even the faintest echo erodes and makes for such wondrous spaces of the mind.”</p><p>“New paths would stretch beyond the ends of the museum, one statue to the next, to paintings, installations, labels, tiles on the corridors’ floors, thermodynamic temperature, shrubbery, fences, traffic lights in a unified discourse.”</p><p>“Should someone here notice? There are ways of leaving hints.”</p><p>“We trust the statue.”</p><p>“We trust the statue. Should the question mark remain unheeded: people work here. Students request access. A quieter crowd for quieter thoughts.”</p><p>“Bountiful harvest, still.”</p><p>“Even in the absence of people, a Statue exists.”</p><p>“It affords perspective.”</p><p>“Let us leave, then. Through a new path we did not see before.”</p>
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